Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/273

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FROM OLYMPIA TO GRAY'S HARBOR.
247

occupying the buildings erected by the general government when Steilacoom was a military post. Both institutions are likely to be retained in use for some time.

Washington received as its portion when it assumed the burdens of statehood one hundred thousand acres for the establishment of a scientific school; one hundred thousand acres for normal schools; for other educational and reformatory institutions, two hundred thousand acres; and will receive five per centum of the proceeds of the sales of public lands lying within her borders for the support of common schools, in addition to the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections in every township. As the constitution of Washington makes the minimum price of school land from five to ten dollars per acre, according to quality, the public school fund is likely to prove abundant for the needs of the successive generations.



CHAPTER XX.

FROM OLYMPIA TO GRAY'S HARBOR.

After a few days spent in Olympia, my impressions of which remain most agreeable, I took steamer for Kamilche, the port on Little Skookum Bay, where one is transferred to a railroad. The weather was charming; the Olympic Range, with Mount Olympus draped in yet unmelted snow, on one hand, and Mount Rainier on the other, towering over the dark range of the Cascades, grand and speckless, drew the eyes away from the too dazzling expanse of the quiet waters through which we were speeding, and the delightful air inspired one with a feeling of overflowing vitality.

Little Skookum is one of half a dozen inlets similar to Budd's which radiate from a common centre on Puget Sound, like a cluster of small tubers on one large one. As we go down Budd Inlet, Mount Rainier is on our right; as we go up Skookum it is on our left, and, the course of the steamer being unnoticed while I study the shores, now being dismantled in many places